I am shaking my head in disbelief. I have always questioned beautiful buildings being demolished in India but to see advanced economies like France/US/UK is atrocious.

And no, ISIS is doing it to deliberately destroy history and culture; not the same case with the others.

Unfortunately the aforementioned demolitions of historic buildings in Western countries, don't differ that much from ISIS.

Whereas ISIS destroys them due to their twisted evil ideology; in the West, greed, indifference, the lack of effective laws for preserving them and corruption are the main reasons for their demolitions. While the reasons of each case differ, the tragic loss of cultural and historical heritage is the same.

By law, the French government cannot fund places of worship, besides a few exceptions.

Maybe not directly and entirely indeed, but the overwhelming majority of French churches (i.e the ones built before 1905) are owned, maintained, funded and renovated by the local authorities though (with quite often, unlike what you wrote, financial aids from the French State (by law, up to 15% of the overall cost is allowed).

And thankfully quite a large part of this overwhelming majority of French churches are protected since they are listed as historical monuments, which prevents them from destruction such as the sad example posted above and allows them to receive even more significant aids/subsidies from the French State/Government (up to 50% of the overall cost of renovation is allowed for those ones), whether they be underused, empty, "non profitable", etc, or not.

Not to mention Alsace-Moselle of course where the French State officially and directly funds the 3 state religions there (catholicism, judaism & protestantism (Lutherans & Reformed Churches)).

Another shocking and outrageous cases of destruction of historical heritage in France. And I naively thought that the barbaric mass demolitions of historic buildings in the 1960's and 1970's were a thing of the past, at least in Western countries like France. How wrong I was, what turns out to be only my wishful thinking. The destruction of national heritage is a crime against culture. And I don't think the government and municipalities (the prime culprits who are responsible for the "maintenance" of churches and historic buildings) in France, don't have a moral high ground vis-à-vis with the Taliban and Islamic State, when it comes to this. It is so awful.

France is the new Sweden.

Very sad that cultural genocide practiced by left-wing politicians in the world - not just in the West, such as Japan and the latest examples of SJWs. From Europe to America, seems to be going more and more into the abyss. There is no refuge from the Thought Police. Every opposing idea means oppression.

well then in that case, why not keep the structure and turn it into something other than a place of worship?

and lets say we are being emotional, why does that matter? is not the ultimate goal of life to direct these "emotions" towards happiness?

surely many might find some happiness in these old structures

and loosing heritage is not just about the one building, its the slow elimination of an identity, a mentality and a sense of belonging

ask us iranians who experienced these things first hand and still are "
one of the easiest ways to destroy a society is by eliminating its physical harmony and identity (from music to clothing to cities)
eventually, the people can be influenced by the lack of strong identity and loose harmony and unity , loose their sense of belonging and attachment to that place
when citizens loose attachment, its far easier for systems and authorities to take advantage of the people and make them immune to degradation

even in most distopian literature we see such ideas, generic buildings with little emotional "sparks" for generic-robotesque people

i might be stretching it a bit but architecture and ambiance does eventually go hand in hand with the general mood and cultural direction of the people

Replaced by the Kluczynski Federal Building by Mies van der Rohe. Nice yet I would still much rather have the Old Federal building back.

In all honesty, in these three cases the replacement building(s) was(ere) improvements over what existed before. The demolished building(s) had too much ornament and visual confusion brought by the excesses of late 19th Century/early 20th Century revived styles. Too much detail on façades, too many elements clogging the view of a bystander from a distance. Their replacements have clean lines and are de-cluttered.

Some people are lamenting the demolition or risk-of-demolition of certain sport venues. Bear in mind things like an unused big stadium have very few alternative uses, and are expensive to maintain in good state of repair.

The old Wembley, for instance, was decrepit, totally out of sync with the needs of modern football, and a crappy house of the English national team. This is why its main use had become a venue for concerts and festivals, which an elliptical stadium is also bad at. Demolishing it an building the new Wembley was a good decision, one that brought London a state-of-the-art venue that leaves nothing behind any other major stadium in the World, soccer or non-soccer.

The old JFK terminal might have been iconic, but consider this:
- an airport is a place where space is at an extreme premium
- walk-to-airplane terminals are an obsolete design (no protection for weather, difficulties for auxiliary vehicles, handicapped passenger access issues, security etc)
Demolishing the thing was the only viable option.

The destruction of these buildings, particularly in Rio, which you regrettably used as an example of improvement, are disgusting.

The buildings in Rio were cheapskate copies of European styles already in decline at time of construction, badly executed (too much ornaments, for instance). They kinda deserved to see the wrecking ball for their architectural low relevance and for posing an impediment on progress and expansion of office footage in downtown Rio.

The buildings in Rio were cheapskate copies of European styles already in decline at time of construction, badly executed (too much ornaments, for instance).

Those buildings in Avenida Rio Branco were not cheap - plenty of stone facades and complex iron work and well built. Also the amount of ornaments on the building was no different to the amount found in similar streets in Lisbon and Barcelona for example. So I can see your knowledge of European neo-classicism is as abrasive as your opinions on it. Your posts indicate you are not European.

The buildings in Rio were cheapskate copies of European styles already in decline at time of construction, badly executed (too much ornaments, for instance). They kinda deserved to see the wrecking ball for their architectural low relevance and for posing an impediment on progress and expansion of office footage in downtown Rio.

I can't really judge the previous situation. I'm surely not a huge fan of that kind of "copy" architecture, especially if it's a late and lazy colonial imitation of the European styles.
But is it? Or did the previous Avenida Rio Branco have some original elements in it? For example, Italian colonial architecture in Eritrea is very original. Architects went to Asmara to develop their most extravagant ideas, to play with local styles and mix them with the Italian ones, building what was "too strange" for Italy. Had the same thing happened in Brazil?

I'd like to see some detailed pictures of Avenida Rio Branco before the demolitions. For example close ups of the statues and similar, if such pictures exist

Avenida Rio Branco would have happily sat in any European important city and what is more, it would be a great source of pride. Well built, stunning eclectic mix of styles. Real architectural heritage and eye candy: